Nurarihyon No Mago: Sennen Makyo – 16-20

Zen is bringing Sexy Back

I know, I know, I’m supposed to finish this weeks ago! And this post isn’t even covering the latest episode! I… Let’s just start… *sigh*

Episode 16

I call episode 16 as the Flashback Episode. It has three different flashbacks of three different people. First is Kubinashi and how he met Rihan. Kubinashi’s human friends were tortured to death by youkai, so he took the classiest job when he became a youkai killer. As he was about to be killed by Rihan, suddenly Kino begged Rihan to spare him. Rihan then pointed out how this contradicted Kubinashi’s argument with Rihan earlier. Impressed, Kubinashi exchanged sakazuki with Rihan. Second is Aotabo’s. He was a killer monk who repented after some old bamf beat him. He went back to his murderous ways when the orphans he took care of were killed by bandits. Third and last is Ibaraki-Doji’s. Kubinashi and Kino were doing great at beating Ibaraki-Doji, until he goes berserk and his stupa (grave marker, sotoba) falls off, showing the other half of his face, which is Ibaraki’s “dead father.” As Ibaraki beats Kubinashi like a boss, Kidomaru stab Kino from the back since he’s a wuss to attack from the front. Suddenly the Keikains appears and put on the seal for the temple where Kubinashi is fighting, and Yura comes to save the day! As for Aotabo, he was stabbed by that nasty monk youkai, but he recovered and slammed the monk youkai onto the ground. He was too late to save Hidemoto the 27^th though. As for Rikuo? He’s still in the his same weak state and is about to be stabbed to death by Kurama Tengu. Whelp!

Kubinashi with neck

Episode 17

Thankfully, Gyuki stops Kurama Tengu from killing Rikuo before we go back to Kubinashi, etc.  Yura’s in a pinch because her Goldie pokemon wasn’t able to defeat Kidomaru, but Ryuji shows up (late on purpose of course) and saves Yura with his water dogs. Mamiru learned Chemistry (or is it Physics?), well enough to use his electric power on the wet Kidomaru. After Kappa skillfully helped Yura, Kubinashi, and Kino escape, Ryuji tricks Kidomaru and Ibaraki so that he, Mamiru, and Aotabo could escape. After a moment of tears by Yura because of her grandfather’s death, Yura falls asleep (on a rock!?), and Hidemoto dissipated into a smoke since he’s a (duh) spirit. Before he leaves, he told everybody that the Keikain and the Nurarihyon Clan have to work together to defeat Hagoromo-Gitsune. And, the mystery about Kurama Tengu is revealed. Somehow everybody in the Gitsune Clan (except Hagoromo Gitsune) forgot about him. He wants to get revenge by killing either Hagoromo-Gitsune or Nue with Nenekirimaru. And that’s why Kurama Tengu’s minions attacked Rikuo without Gyuki knowing. In the middle of the attack, Rikuo calmed himself down and decided to accept Zen’s stubbornness to stay with Rikuo as a part of the Hundred Parade’s member (trusting Zen to fight with him). Suddenly Rikuo’s sword glows and Zen’s gorgeous wings join Rikuo’s sword in the form of smoke.

That yandere face

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It’s a lightsaber!

Episode 18

Episode 18 begins from where episode 17 left off with Zen’s wings joining Rikuo’s sword. When Gyuki arrives, the side of the hut was blown off, and all the Tengu pop out injured from the hut like popcorn. Later on Gyuki explains in Zen’s flashback that Rikuo’s newest technique is the technique that Rihan created with both his human and youkai blood. The technique uses your mutual partner’s fear, thus earning it the name Matoi (“equip”).  Anyhow, Rikuo comes to the temple to rescue Yuki-Onna and uses her fear (with Yuki-Onna misunderstanding Rikuo’s words as a proposal of course), destroying Tsuchi-Gumo’s uppermost right hand. Finally getting serious, Tsuchi-Gumo creats a spider web barricade, separating Rikuo from his Hundred Night’s Parade peeps (btw, The Hundred Nights’ Parade were able to take some temples from Gitsune Clan). However, Zen, Yuki-Onna, and the Tono Clan (who appeared out of nowhere [actually, from a cliff…]) jumped to enter the barrier. Rikuo is no longer alone because his Hundred Night’s Parade is and will always be with him.

Obligatory ink-ish screenshot

Seems like Gyuki caught Rikuo and Zen in the middle of their, um, “intense” action

…THREESOME!

Episode 19

After Rikuo’s successful Matoi with Tsurara, he wanted to try to use it again with Itaku (Tsurara’s emotionally scarred by that time because she found out that Rikuo used Matoi with Zen too). Itaku reluctantly agrees but is surprised later on when he sees that Rikuo is actually using his fear. Rikuo’s sword becomes Itaku’s blade, and he slices Tsuchi-Gumo in half with it. After a couple of minutes of rest, Tsuchi-Gumo recovers from his wound and admits his defeat. He then tells Rikuo that all he wanted was to fight Nue, a half youkai onmyouji who controlled Kyoto with darkness a thousand years ago. Seeing Hagormo-Gitsune’s castle covered with dark cloud, Rikuo and Hidemoto realized that there is no time left. Meanwhile, Nurarihyon came to check on Hagoromo-Gitsune. He was too stunned with the fear of her baby’s that he didn’t noticed Ibaraki-Doji behind his back, resulting with a slash on his back. Thankfully, the big skeleton came and rampaged the cave out of love, letting Karasu-Tengu to snatch Nurarihon away. However, Yosuzume spread her feathers, blinding Nurarihyon and Karasu-Tengu. Minagoroshi Jizo stabs Nurarihyon with the Devil Blade, letting it to suck on his blood thus having the blood of all three Nurarihyon leaders now. Nurarihyon uses his Shadow no Jutsu to escape, and Minagoroshi Jizo hides the Devil Sword from Kidomaru. When Kidomaru looks outside, he sees Rikuo’s Hunderd Nights’ Parade, ready to attack.

Rikuo x Itaku FTW

Lesson: Don’t go out at night when you’re old

Episode 20

Yosh, the last episode for this post. After kicking out some low-class youkai, Rikuo has some trouble when he meets the two youkai who captured his grandmother since one of the youkai can predict the future. Thankfully, Yura’s continuous Goldie attack doesn’t give room for the youkai to think, and he’s able to slash both youkai to death. Things get troublesome though, when Rikuo and the rest fight Kidomaru and Ibaraki-Doji. Good thing Kurotabo’s awesome Matoi (which evolved with Rikuo looking like an awesome badass) helps Rikuo at fighting Kidomaru and his swift attacks. Ibaraki-Doji gets taken care of by Kubinashi, so everything’s all good! Until Kidomaru decides to upgrade his Rajomon Gate by adding…horn at the Gate’s roof? Weird. Anyhow, after the ending, we get to see who Abe no Seimei is. He’s a powerful half-youkai onmyouji who was able to maintain the peace between youkai and human in Kyoto, and he wanted to live forever so that he could maintain that peace. He hasn’t perfected his Hangon no Jutsu (technique to return the dead to life) though, so he asked his youkai mother Hagoromo-Gitsune to give birth to him repeatedly since Gitsune has the ability to be reborn for thousand years. As a loving mother, Hagoromo-Gitsune was willing to give birth to Seimei repeatedly (ouch), but she didn’t get a chance to since Seimei’s boss killed her when she was a fox, wanting to eat her liver for the sake of youth. Enraged, Seimei killed the humans around him and decided that puny humans have to be ruled by youkai. Oh, forgot to mention this, but as Rikuo is fighting Kidomaru, Hagoromo-Gitsune is in labor. God knows how there’s a baby inside her stomach since it’s FLAT, but she IS pregnant after all. So, I guess we’ll see Seimei again! Good for you Seimei!

My circus, I summon you!

Even monks can be sexy

She’s glowing. Great, vampires in NuraNoMago too

Mother complex

Seimei: “BITCH, THAT’S MY MAMA YOU JUST KILLED!”

End Thoughts:

Whoa, that’s a lot. Pardon if there’s any mistake in the summary; It’s 1 AM as I’m writing, and the internet is being a beeyotch to me right now. You know how many times Kyokai slipped “Nurarihyon” in her emails? A lot. Anyhow, these five episodes are giving me mixed feelings right now. I had to download episode sixteen to eighteen twice, one low and one high. I wanted to make sure that my problem is just because of the video quality, but alas I was wrong. I’m definitely hatin’ the lightning for episode sixteen to eighteen. The shades are waaayy too dark. I wasn’t able to see some of the scenes that are in the shadow because of the excessive darkness. Thank goodness the lightning is better in episode nineteen and twenty. The fighting scenes are pretty decent though, and I’m happy with the fact that they’re more focused with the quality of the characters and the sharpness of the colors now. Zen’s wings are fabulous, and Kidomaru’s Cherry Blossom is too pretty to be true. The details in Rikuo’s Kurotabo costume and weapons are just wow. This is definitely an eyegasm for those who love pretty colors in anime. As for the background music, I still giggle every time they have this modern beat when the characters are fighting in the ancient Edo and Kyoto styles.

The story is coming to an end, and thank god they’re introducing Seimei now. His character is very interesting though, since it’s obvious that he was a good guy before. Isn’t it a little bit too extreme though, wanting to be reborn as a human just for him to maintain peace? Honestly, he’s a human, he needs to know his limit. But here’s where the conflict comes in: is it wrong for a person to rule forever if he can maintain peace in this world? As in real peace, not Fuhrer’s kind of peace? I keep pondering about this question ever since I found about Seimei’s past. Aren’t all religions like that, claiming that there’s his one perfect deity that’s going to maintain peace forevah when the end of the world is here? Then there’s nothing wrong with Seimei trying to immortalize himself, right? What if Hagoromo-Gitsune wasn’t killed, he’ll still be a good guy until now right? Good god, these questions keep popping out of my head, and I swear my head’s going all dizzy because of it. Thankfully, Seimei died. There, problem solved. No more questions.

Aside from Seimei, I’m liking anime Rikuo better and better. He moves, he’s sexier, his voice is dayum hot, he’s in color, and his techniques definitely kicks ass! Also, is Matoi giving lots of plus points for him right now. Matoi is just one technique, but it’s probably the most powerful one since it gives Rikuo unlimited numbers of variations of it since his minions have different kinds of fears. Kudos to Rihan for creating such an awesome technique. Speaking of Rihan, some mysteries about him is finally revealed. Obviously, loli Hagoromo-Gitsune was the one who killed Rihan, but I was surprised that the Devil Blade (Mao’s Hammer) was the weapon that killed him. There’s definitely something fishy here, since Minagoroshi Jizo replaced Kurama Tengu not by mutual agreement and hid the blade from a fellow Kyoto youkai. It’s kind of obvious that his loyalty is not for Nue but for someone else.  Who is it? Well, I hope they’re going to make a third season for Nurarihyon no Mago so we can see Mnagoroshi Jizo’s boss being animated!

Preview: No preview. The episodes are out. I swear, I’ll catch up before next week, Friday!